Will Leaving Church $800,000 Has Disappeared, April 21, 1923

Will Leaving Sum to Church Cannot Be Located Today. . . It Is Said That In the Will of J.W. Higgins of Yancey County, Left the Methodist Church $800,000. . . Lawyers in Six Cities on Hunt. . . Rev. W.O. Goode Says There Is No Question About the Will, Which Was Seen Only a Few Weeks Ago

By the Associated Press

Hickory, April 21—A will by which J.W. Higgins, Yancy county banker, is said to have bequeathed $800,000 to further the work of the Methodist Episcopal “Church, South, has disappeared, and attorneys in six towns of the state have been retained to investigate the affair, the Rev. W.O. Goode, secretary-treasurer of the Board of Education of the Western North Carolina conference of the church said today.

There is no question of fact as to the will, according to Mr. Goode, who said it was seen a few days before the death of Mr. Higgins, but it cannot be found, he added. Mr. Higgins, who was 82 years of age and childless, was struck by an automobile driven by Elias Hensley, 16, several weeks ago, and died in a Marion, N.C., hospital. His farm, valued at $16,000, was left to a nephew, Joseph Higgins, and the remainder of his fortune to the church, dispatches said at that time.

The attorneys retained in the case were named as Mark W. Brown, Asheville; Eugene E. Gray, Winston-Salem; Self, Bagby & Aiken, Hickory; Ryburn & Hoey, Shelby; Chas. Hutchins, Burnsville; and Pless & Winborne, Marion.

From the front page of The Concord Daily Tribune, Saturday, April 21, 1923. $800,000 in 1923 would be worth almost $14 million in 2023.